The following invention concerns an electronic device, preferably a cell phone or handheld, containing a layer and a moving mechanism for the layer, which allows the layer to be extractable out of a rest position.
Electronic devices, especially cell phones, containing layers that are slideable out of a rest position are generally known. Several manufacturers of cell phones are producing that kind of device. The publication EP 944 219 A2 discloses some cell phones of this type.
Thanks to the miniaturization of electrical components, today it is possible to reduce the size of cell phones significantly and to make them in that way very handy for carrying them around, e.g. in trouser pockets etc. On the other hand, this advantage also creates a drawback: The small size of the casing reduces the surface available for the manipulation of the cell phone and makes therefore the practical handling somewhat inconvenient. The use of a keypad that is arranged on a layer, which is slideable out of the main casing of the cell phone, offers in this respect several advantages.
It is known that the use of an additional layer, which is extractable out of the main casing, allows the device to be temporarily enlarged. This enlargement makes the surface available for the manipulation of the device bigger for the time it is being used and augments temporarily the cell phone size as a whole, permitting better handling in this way.
Although containing an extractable layer, the known types on the market offer only a limited possibility to adapt and to increase the casing surface for the manipulation of the device. This limitation has obviously been realized. An attempt to overcome this restriction is made e.g. with mechanisms like in the Nokia 9500 Communicator. This appliance shows another way to increase the casing surface in order to offer a more convenient format to the operator for manipulating the cell phone. The electronic device is foldable and opened it contains a wide screen in landscape format and a keyboard similar to the ones used for PC's. In this condition the cell phone is even suitable to be operable as a pocket PC. A drawback of this solution is the higher amount of components, which have to be integrated in the cell phone (e.g. two different displays and two different keypads). Further, used as a normal cell phone, there is no additional surface available for the manipulation of the device. The advantage to have a foldable casing is therefore not under all circumstances a benefit.